the_mysterious_mr_enterfandomcom-20200214-history
A general update of things
I'll be talking about a bunch of things, and in between each of them, I'm going to put lines so you know what to skip if you're not interested. So, today was the first day in awhile I started feeling better. That's good. ------ Stardew Valley ------ Stardew Valley has really helped distract me from the pain. It's an awesome game and you can buy it on steam here: store.steampowered.com/app/413… I got it a week ago, and I put 57 hours into it. You ever come across one of those games/movies/books where it felt like they made it just for you? Where every little new feature you come across is something that you yourself would have put in/wanted? Stardew Valley is one of them for me. It's essentially Harvest Moon for the PC, except much better. It's a farming simulator, but you can go fishing, mining, engage in Zelda-style combat, or talk and grow relationships with any of the like 30 different citizens of the town. The town is a perfect size. The only Harvest Moon game I've played before this was the original, which was so dated and tedious I couldn't play, and A Wonderful Life. I feel that Stardew Valley is better than A Wonderful Life in every way. What A Wonderful Life calls a "town" is two streets with a hotel and a farm, and no store. Stardew Valley's Pelican Town FEELS like a town. There's a small local store, a supermarket, a saloon with an arcade, a bunch of houses that have people going on their day-to-day schedules. There's a beach with a fishing store, and mines. It's the kind of place you'd want to live in reality. The game has a perfect pace. On your first play through you're discovering all kinds of new things (that I don't want to spoil), and it's more than just the changing seasons. Discovering what's in the Community Center, or the mines, or the desert is an awesome experience. And the soundtrack is amazing. It is truly amazing. Also, Robin looks like Ms. Frizzle. ------ Next Review ------ The next review will hopefully be on next Friday. What's it going to be? I'm going to try doing something a little bit different: Top 10/11 Best Parents in Animation. Why am I doing this? Mostly for a challenge. In every other show/movie I review it seems like the parents are absolutely horrible. Whether their emotionally abusive parents, like Buck Cluck, completely neglectful like the Turners, completely up their own ass like Peggy Hill, completely stereotypical like Glenn Martin and his wife, or complete monsters like any parent on Family Guy... the "joke" gets old. It gets annoying, and I'm just sick of it. Now, this list doesn't sound too hard, but I'm going to have a couple of rules: 1.) The parent must be alive by the end of the work. Bambi's Mom, Mufasa, Chuckie's Mom. Think about it. If the work is going to talk about a dead parent, they aren't going to give a negative portrayal of them. There are too many works trying to show the most amazing relationships possible just to kill off one of the people within it to begin with. I mean take a look at the Disney Animated Canon and see how many of them have both parents living to the end There are five: 101 Dalmatians; Peter Pan; Hercules; Mulan; and Tangled. And with Peter Pan ''and ''Hercules it's not even noticeable. And with Tangled, the parents don't have any lines. Mulan is about the child's love for the parent, not the other way around. 2.) I can include adoptive and step-parents, but I cannot include parental substitutes This is why the list is difficult to make. Explaining myself, I can't include characters like Uncle Iroh from Avatar or Arnold's grandparents from Hey Arnold. Same reasons as before: it happens too often and there's way too much competition. However, I can include characters like Professor Utonium and Dale Gribble. It's not an easy list with those two rules and not to mention all of the footage I'll have to gather. But it should be interesting. Considering how often stupid/useless/abusive parents are put in animation. Also, with married couples I could choose one parent over the other. For example, I could choose Marge Simpson and not choose Homer Simpson. ------ Thinking about Live Action ------ So, I've been thinking about expanding my review series to live-action shows. I've been thinking about this for awhile. A few months back I was marathoning The Twilight Zone and I came across the episode Mute. If it was animated, I would have already reviewed it by now. It's a confused mess and my least favorite episode from an awesome show. The episode is about a girl named Ilsa (pronounced Ill-sa). So her biological parents raised her from birth as an experiment, never talking to her, allowing her to develop telepathy. Then her parents die and she's forced to stay with a normal family for awhile. It's a nice premise for an episode and could have been great. The problem? Well, the normal family lost their own daughter and begins to see Ilsa as a replacement. What the episode tries to portray as love is a psychiatric coping mechanism that's very destructive to people. Maybe that was a part of the time, but beyond that there's another problem: Ilsa's school. The school robs her of her special ability (telepathy), forces her into conformity, and basically subjugates her to audio torture. This is all portrayed as a good thing, for a show that has demonized conformity. It's a confused mess. Another thing is that I don't watch too many live-action series, so this would be much less frequent show. Also, I wouldn't know what to call either my positive or negative reviews of live action shows. Live action shows are... different than animated series as I've noticed. I've noticed that Live Action shows tend to have bad seasons as opposed to bad episodes. I mean House season 7 was particularly awful, but no episode really stood out as being horrendous (maybe Two Stories because of the framing device being so confused you can't follow the damn plot). Sometimes it's subplots that run the entire season. Sometimes it's just writer burnout creating lackluster episode I mean sometimes entire shows are horrible, and I can deal with that like I deal with bad animated shows. Just pick a random episode/first episode and go with that. But I just don't see many live-action single-episodes that stand out, excepting maybe finale episodes to certain shows. And I do not want to just go and review an entire season of a show. That sounds... not very fun, and not very interesting. Not to mention that live-action comes with all kinds of goodies that I don't want to deal with: reality shows, commercials, crap sitcoms. I'm just iffy on the whole idea. ------ Alone Together Beta Readers ----- I want the best possible future for Alone Together, and I understand that it's going to be a slow ride. I recently posted an episode of the show, which you can read here: Alone Together - Oscar Breaks a Ball (Sample Ep). This is episode 5 out of 12 (not including the pilot). It is the only one fully written, as I am writing them out of order. Needless to say, with my current injuries... it felt right to write about that one. Other episodes are in various states of completion. I've realized for this to work out well, I am going to need beta readers. People to read the episodes before they go into productions. There are a set criteria I'm looking for. First of all, they will be sworn to secrecy. It's very important on this one. This show is a deconstruction-type show. Many episodes are meant to hit people by surprise. Think Cabin in the Woods. Secondly, these readers must be okay with difficult subject matter. While I won't be doing gross-out, I will be talking about difficult topics. There are a couple of fun episodes The Gods Must be Julie and Mr. Mom and Mrs. Dad, which focus more on the comedy than the commentary (at least in writing), but for the most part the show is going to get exceptionally harsh. I will be dealing with very hard issues and nothing is off limits. Some of the worst things possible will happen to the characters. If it doesn't make sense for it to happen to one of them, it will happen to someone they know (Dahlia's addiction). Thirdly... on opinions. With talking about what I'm talking about, there are bound to be disagreements. This is absolutely fine, and I do need multiple perspectives. If nothing else, it helps me cover all of my bases. However, what I need here is comparable to the right of final cut. I can discard anything. There's a chance you will be offended, but I'm going to go through with it anyway. That being said, I don't want to fall into the traps of Family Guy. To describe this bluntly: this show is the kind of show that isn't trying to offend you, but doesn't care if you do get offended. Beyond that, there's the standard stuff - making sure that I'm getting the effects that I intend to get. Also, spelling/grammar/characterization. Also, I kind of need a place where I can show beta readers things without everyone else getting to see it. If not, I am going to have to post them here, which I don't want to do. I mean what I want is to surprise as many people as possible with the episodes animated to show off their full effect. Anyone up for it? Category:Miscellaneous